America’s heartland continues to carve out new casino meetings destinations.
From a handful of states allowing riverboat gambling in the early ’90s, the casinos moved to docksides and the land, and expanded. They have been piling on the hotel rooms, entertainment and multipurpose event centers ever since.
Here’s a roundup of casino offerings and activity around the Midwest.
Indiana
The Hoosier State has 13 casinos—one land-based, 10 lake- and river-based, and two racinos. Among them are five Chicagoland casinos along Lake Michigan, including such major properties as Horseshoe Hammond and Blue Chip Casino, Hotel & Spa.
French Lick Resort, in the southern Indiana towns of West Baden and French Lick, in April topped out a $15.5 million, 58,000-square-foot expansion to its existing 109,000-square-foot event center. It includes a 22,000-square-foot ballroom and 27 meeting venues. Currently, it has a 13,000-square-foot ballroom.
A $500 million historic restoration and casino development that includes two historic hotels—West Baden Springs Hotel and French Lick Springs Hotel—French Lick has 689 rooms; a 51,000-square-foot casino and 63 holes of golf.
Illinois
The Prairie State has 10 dockside casinos, all on rivers. Six, together with five Indiana casinos, form the Chicagoland market, the country’s third-largest commercial casino market after Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
Opened in July 2011, 16 miles from downtown Chicago, Rivers Casino has 1,050 slots, 48 table games and meeting space. In March 2012 it was awarded a LEED Gold certification.
Jumer’s Casino & Hotel, in Rock Island in the Quad Cities region, is operated by Delaware North Companies, which acquired it in April 2011. Jumer’s features a 205-room hotel and an event center with 7,400 square feet of meeting space that can handle groups of up to 600.
Iowa
Iowa has 18 riverboat, land-based casinos, and racinos, and three tribal casinos.
Work is underway on its 19th casino, the $128.5 million Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sioux City, expected to open this summer. Located in downtown Sioux City’s historic Battery Building, it will include a 54-room hotel and an 800-slot casino.
Blackbird Bend Casino in Onawa held its grand opening in February after operating for a year out of a temporary location. Its original casino was damaged in the 2011 Missouri River flood. A new bingo hall will open this spring.
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Kansas
Sunflower State legislation passed in 2007 authorized four commercial casinos, each in a different region. Since then three have opened.
The first of the three was the $90 million Boot Hill Casino & Resort ,opened in Dodge City in December 2009. It has 700 electronic gaming machines, 18 table games plus poker, a 150-seat restaurant, and an adjacent 108-room Hampton Inn & Suites, which opened in March 2012.
Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway opened in February 2012 with more than 2,000 slots, 52 table games and five restaurants.
Peninsula Gaming opened Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane, 17 miles south of Wichita, in December 2011. A planned $20 million expansion includes a 10,000-square-foot convention facility.
The state also has five tribal casinos.
Michigan
The Great Lakes State has three commercial casinos, all in Detroit, the country’s fourth-largest commercial casino market.
The three are MGM Grand Detroit, with a 30,000-square-foot event center; Greektown Casino Hotel, with 25,000 square feet of meeting space, and which is under new management and planning renovations; and MotorCity Casino Hotel, with 67,000 square feet of banquet and meeting space.
Michigan also has approximately 20 tribal casinos, including the popular FireKeepers Casino in Battle Creek.
Minnesota
In Minnesota, 11 tribes operate 18 casinos.
The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians operates three Seven Clans casinos in northern Minnesota—at Warroad, Red Lake and Thief River Falls—each with a hotel.
Scheduled for completion this fall is the new Seven Clans Casino-Warroad, which will include a new 60-room hotel, a 150-seat restaurant, a gaming floor with 600 slots and six gaming tables, and new boat docks.
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Missouri
The Show-Me State has 13 riverfront casinos, including four each in the St. Louis and Kansas City metro regions.
The 13th to open was Isle Casino Cape Girardeau, in October 2012 in downtown Cape Girardeau. It has a 7,725-square-foot event center that can accommodate groups of up to 500, more than 900 slots, 21 table games, seven poker tables and five restaurants.
At River City Casino & Hotel, Pinnacle Entertainment last September completed an $82 million expansion that included a new 200-room hotel and a 14,000-square-foot multi-purpose event center. Located 10 miles south of downtown St. Louis, in Lemay along the Mississippi, the casino, which opened in 2010, can now take groups of up to 1,400.
Nebraska
The Cornhusker State has three tribes operating four casinos.
The first to open was the Ohiya Casino & Bingo at Niobrara in northeast Nebraska in 1996. A grand opening was held on the property’s 18th anniversary in February last year for the new Ohiya Casino & Resort on a site two miles away, which replaced it.
Owned by the Santee Sioux Nation, the new facility has a 25,000-square-foot casino with 400 gaming machines, a 47-room lodge and a banquet facility. An 18-hole golf course is under construction.
North Dakota
North Dakota has 10 tribal casinos.
Sky Dancer Casino & Resort in Belcourt, owned by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, completed a $30 million expansion and renovation last fall. The project included a new 100-room hotel tower and an expanded gaming floor. The existing casino building became a 1,500-seat events center.
Ohio
A constitutional amendment passed in 2009 allowed one land-based commercial casino in each of Ohio’s four largest cities. The four casinos have all opened since 2012, and the first of a growing number of racinos, which don’t have table games, opened in 2012 as well.
Horseshoe Cleveland is located in downtown Cleveland’s historic Higbee Building and has more than 1,900 slots, 89 table games and a 30-table poker room. It has partnered with 15 downtown restaurants and three hotels.
The first racino was Scioto Downs Racino (2,100 slots), owned and operated by MTR Gaming Group, opened in south Columbus in June 2012.
Also opened this past December was the Hard Rock Rocksino (2,300 slots) on Northfield Park’s harness racing grounds, 20 miles from both Cleveland and Akron.
The $88 million ThistleDown Racino opened in April last year at ThistleDown thoroughbred racetrack southeast of downtown Cleveland, with six dining and entertainment facilities, including a banquet room.
Pinnacle Entertainment opened the $300 million Belterra Park Gaming & Entertainment Center near downtown Cincinnati on May 1 this year.
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Oklahoma
More than 30 tribes operate more than 100 casinos in Oklahoma, with more than 60,000 gaming machines.
The Cherokee Nation’s Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, which has a 2,700-seat event center, in March last year added a third hotel tower with 100 suites, bringing the total room and suites count to 454. The $52 million project also included a casino expansion providing 500 additional electronic games, 15 more table games, a poker room, a media bar and a food court.
The Choctaw Casino Resort in Durant features two casinos totaling 4,500 slots and two hotels with 431 rooms. Last September the resort broke ground on a $275 million expansion that will include a 22-story, 500-room hotel slated to open next year.
Last November, the Chickasaw Nation’s WinStar World Casino and Resort, one mile north of the Red River in Thackerville, added a second hotel, which has 500 rooms. The original tower has 395 rooms. WinStar has a 3,500-seat event center, 27 holes of golf and eight themed gaming plazas with 7,400 electronic games and 120 tables games.
River Spirit Casino of the Muscogee Nation broke ground in Tulsa last October on a $335 million expansion slated to open next year.
South Dakota
Slots and table games are permitted at Deadwood, the historic western town 60 miles from Mount Rushmore, and at tribal casinos throughout South Dakota.
Deadwood has more than 20 commercial casinos, which are regulated by the South Dakota Commission on Gaming. The state also has more than a dozen Indian casinos operated by eight tribes.
Last November, Deadwood Mountain Grand, a Holiday Inn Resort, completed a $50 million renovation. Included in the project were the casino, which has 200 slots plus table games; its event center, which can accommodate more than 2,000 people; and the 103-room hotel, which is housed in a historical mining building.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin has 17 tribal casinos.
Potawatomi Bingo Casino in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley will become the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in late summer when its long-awaited $150 million, 381-room hotel opens. The expansion will include a 180-seat casual dining restaurant, lobby bar, and 10,000 feet of additional meeting space. Currently it has more than 32,000 square feet of meeting space.
Oneida Casino in Green Bay has been undergoing a yearlong renovation and expansion at two of its six locations, scheduled to be completed in July. The project includes the recent openings of a Countryville Bar & Grill at its West Mason Street location, and a new food court and Vince Lombardi’s Legendary Sports Bar & Grill at the Oneida Casino Airport Drive.
Tony Bartlett has covered casino gaming for Meetings Focus on numerous occasions.
